On Wednesday morning, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC continued to surprisingly give full segment to the Hunter Biden trial, but this left the overall tally at 37 minutes (37:11) versus the 71 minutes (70:43) at this point in the Trump trial. On the substance, they all casually brought up Hunter Biden’s “controversial” laptop despite years of either denying its existence or brushing it aside.
ABC’s Good Morning America again had senior national correspondent Terry Moran provide helpings of pathetic sympathy for these supposedly downtrodden Bidens: “Because Hunter Biden is the President’s son, this case is seen as political by many, but for the Biden family, who so many American families have been caught up in the world with drug abuse and guns, this is personal and painful.”
Like the CBS and NBC would, Moran brought up Hunter’s relationship with his late brother Beau’s widow Hallie, but ignored how that caused his first marriage to fall apart to Kathleen Buhle.
After giving space to the defense’s claim Hunter was too cogent in the same time period to have been on cocaine, Moran finally brought up the laptop (click “expand”):
MORAN: During testimony the jurors saw these angry text messages between Hunter and Hallie Biden after she found Hunter’s gun and threw it in a trash can. Hunter texting, “Did you take that from me? You’re being totally irresponsible and unhinged.” Hallie responding, “I just want you safe, that was not safe.” Prosecutors are using a portrait of Hunter Biden the crack addict using images and text messages obtained from his laptop including a video where he is using a Tom mark holding a crack pipe. As well as passages from his memoir.
BIDEN: I used my superpower finding crack anytime, anywhere.
MORAN: Defense lawyers say that they plan to call members of the Biden family who can present eyewitness testimony and paint a different picture of that troubled time in Hunter’s life.
NBC Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles said on Today that Wednesday “could be another difficult day for the Biden family in the courtroom as Hunter Biden’s ex-wife is expected to be called to the witness stand.”
Nobles also reported excerpts of the audiobook for Hunter’s memoir were played in court to outline “his painful battle with addiction” as well as Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell countering by “listing off all the things Biden was involved in at the time, arguing that it doesn’t look like, ‘someone who was smoking crack every 20 minutes.’”
Nobles named the laptop as evidence, but called it “controversial”. To his credit, he was the only network correspondent to inform viewers about a deranged outburst from Hunter’s current wife (click “expand”):
The prosecution also introducing as evidence the controversial laptop Hunter left at a repair shop in Delaware. It is filled with texts and Whatsapp messages as well as pictures that prosecutors used to demonstrate the defendant’s pattern of addiction. Hunter’s painful past will continue to be a theme throughout the trial.
Expected on the witness stand Wednesday, Kathleen Buhle, Hunter’s ex-wife, who will detail how his addictions impacted their family life. And Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter’s late brother Beau, with whom he had a romantic relationship. And as an example of just how tense things are here in Wilmington, yesterday Hunter’s current wife Melissa Cohen Biden confronting a Trump aide who was in the courtroom. She asked what he was doing here, and accusing him of being a Nazi.
CBS Mornings continued its more muted and straightforward approach that, in other words, was the opposite of ABC’s Moran.
“Hunter Biden’s ex-wife could testify this morning at the criminal trial of the President’s son, accused of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun in 2018. Jurors yesterday heard the defendant himself describe his past addiction,” co-host Nate Burleson began.
Correspondent Scott MacFarlane relayed that prosecutors used “Hunter Biden’s own voice” as “a key part of evidence” to show he wasn’t anywhere close to clean when he allegedly bought the gun at the center of the trial.
MacFarlane, however, brought up the laptop by calling it “the infamous laptop that Hunter Biden left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019” and was “introduced into evidence” with an “FBI agent testif[ying] it contained messages detailing Biden’s drug addiction.”
Many thanks to NewsBusters intern Mary Clare Waldron for assistance in compiling the transcripts.
To see the relevant June 5 transcripts, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
